by Radha Vatsal
“Go ahead. I’m listening.”
“This has nothing to do with your daughter.” Kitty plunged in. “My editor would like me to interview Mrs. Belmont.”
“And you want me to put in a word?”
“Only if you know her, and if it’s not too much trouble. I wish I didn’t have to ask, but—”
“It’s quite all right, my dear. I understand. Even without Elspeth in it, somehow or the other, life goes ahead.”
• • •
Kitty announced her good news about New Year’s to Miss Busby the next morning.
“Glad to hear it, Miss Weeks.” Miss Busby beamed. “Just in time. Otherwise, I don’t know what we’d have done.”
“I’ve made arrangements to come back late to the boardinghouse,” Jeannie added. “Normally, all us girls have to be in before nine.”
“Every night?” Kitty said.
“My landlady doesn’t make exceptions,” Jeannie replied. “I had to tell her that I would lose my job and wouldn’t be able to pay the rent!”
“Enough chitchat, ladies.” Miss Busby glanced at them from behind her desk. “Let’s finish up here. Tomorrow will be a big night for you both.”
“What do you think has come over her?” Jeannie asked as she and Kitty returned to their desks.
“She’s feeling old-fashioned. Trying to make up for lost time.”
“What will she do next?” Jeannie wondered. “Start wearing short skirts?” Both girls dissolved into giggles at the thought of Miss Busby’s spindly ankles peeking out from beneath a raised hem.
Rao drove Kitty to the Marquands’ home after work, and on the way over, she mentioned that she would be covering the New Year’s Eve festivities and asked if he would accompany her.
“With pleasure, Miss Weeks.” The chauffeur tipped his cap. “I’d like to see them myself.”
Chapter Nine
Mrs. Marquand opened the front door and frowned. “Have we met before?”
“At Tipton’s,” Kitty said. “I’m a friend of Elspeth Bright’s.”
The door opened a shade wider. “Oh, yes.”
“I’m also a reporter for the Ladies’ Page of the New York Sentinel,” Kitty said as she came in. “I wrote the story on Westfield Hall that appeared in the paper two weeks ago, but I’m not here on business. It’s strictly private. I was wondering if I might speak to Miss Marquand.”
Mrs. Marquand eyed her suspiciously again. “What for?”
“Mrs. Bright wanted to know whether something had been troubling her daughter—whether she had something on her mind that made her walk in her sleep again. I believe Miss Marquand had dinner at the Brights’ on Christmas?”
“Yes.” Mrs. Marquand led Kitty down the hall. “They invited our family. We were all there.”
“Ah, so you’re all friends.”
“In a manner of speaking. Between you and me, Miss Weeks, I don’t have much patience for Ephigenia Bright’s suffrage activities.” She adjusted her diamond bracelet. “I believe that a woman’s place is in the home, and that’s where women’s rights begin. If Effie hadn’t been so busy with whatever it is she does and had paid more attention to her daughter, then—well, one doesn’t like to say it—but perhaps Elspeth might not have been wandering out and about like that. As it was, I didn’t like to see her out alone with you at Tipton’s.”
“I see.” Kitty felt Mrs. Marquand’s criticism to be in bad taste. People had different views on how far a girl could roam unchaperoned and unsupervised. Julian Weeks gave Kitty a pretty long leash, but for the Brights’ neighbor, it would seem that even a few blocks was too much. “Mrs. Bright thought Miss Marquand might know something…that Miss Bright might have said something to her, one girl to another.”
“And she deputized you to come instead of asking herself?” Prudence Marquand’s mother looked at Kitty askance.
“She thought it might be more effective coming from someone her daughter’s age. You know how girls are.”
Mrs. Marquand put her hand on the bannister. “That I do. Prudence,” she called up the stairs. “Prudence. Come on down. There’s someone here to see you.” She turned to Kitty. “Let’s wait in the parlor. Prudence will meet us there.”
A sullen, baby-faced girl shuffled in a few minutes after Kitty had settled into a comfortable living room with a fireplace and mantel not dissimilar to the Brights’, except there were no photographs here. Only a white porcelain cat and three silver boxes.
“Look sharp, Prudence,” her mother said. “Miss Weeks is from the papers. What will she think if you slouch so?”
Prudence Marquand didn’t say anything but came and sat opposite Kitty without showing much interest. It looked as though someone else had chosen her red skirt and frilly blouse patterned with tiny flowers.
“Miss Weeks would like to ask you some questions about Elspeth.” Mrs. Marquand maintained her forcefully cheerful manner, but clearly, her daughter’s behavior in front of a newswoman was a disappointment.
“I don’t know anything.” Prudence picked at her cheek.
Mrs. Marquand sighed. “Don’t touch, darling.”
“I wonder,” Kitty said, “would you mind leaving us alone for a moment?”
“Perhaps that’s for the best.” Mrs. Marquand rose. “Do try to be cooperative, Prudence.”
“I don’t know why you want to speak with me, Miss Weeks,” the girl said once her mother left the room. “We were invited to dinner because we’re neighbors and I’ve known Elspeth for ages, but I didn’t like her, and she didn’t like me. I am sorry though that she died.”
“Oh.” Kitty hadn’t expected to hear such a blunt account of the situation and that the two girls weren’t friends. And Mrs. Marquand didn’t care for Mrs. Bright’s activities either. She hoped at least the fathers enjoyed each other’s company, or it would have made for a very dreary dinner. “May I ask why you didn’t get along?”
“Elspeth was a strange girl,” Prudence said.
“In what way?”
Prudence wrinkled her nose as she hunted for an answer. “She spent all her time with that odd Mrs. Swartz. And she kept a photograph of ugly, old Thomas Edison pinned beside her desk. We had nothing in common.”
“Miss Bright admired Mr. Edison?”
“I suppose so. She must have. It can’t have been for his looks”—the Wizard of Menlo Park was in his seventies and hadn’t ever been handsome—“but then again, you never knew with Elspeth.” Prudence couldn’t resist a smirk.
“So, you wouldn’t have known if she had anything on her mind the night she died. Any girlish worries, for instance?” Kitty had begun to wonder whether Prudence held a grudge against Elspeth, or whether Elspeth had some secret beau hidden in the background.
“Elspeth didn’t have girlish worries. She wasn’t very girlish, if you know what I mean.”
“I’m afraid I don’t, Miss Marquand.”
“She dabbled in her science constantly.” Prudence pronounced the word with disdain. “Always in the laboratory with her experiments and her beakers. So proud to be different from the rest of us. I mean, who did she think she was—a young fellow?”
“I think it’s admirable that Miss Bright was interested in scientific pursuits.” Kitty felt sorry for Elspeth. Perhaps the other girls found her strange as well.
“The birds and the bees, fish, flowers—nature drawing—I can understand all of that.” For the first time during their conversation, Prudence looked Kitty in the eye. “But batteries?”
“I beg your pardon?” Kitty didn’t think she had heard correctly.
“That’s right. Miss Bright was working on something to do with batteries.”
“She told you so?”
Miss Marquand took a hankie from her pocket and started winding it around her little finger. “I heard her arguing with Dr. B
right that evening when we came in. She said something about batteries to him and how she’d stake her life on what she believed, and then…” The handkerchief stopped moving. “That very night, she passed on.”
Chapter Ten
Kitty returned to the Sentinel and hurried straight to the basement. “I need your help, Mr. Musser.”
Herman Musser wiped his mustache on his sleeve. He ate lunch at his counter on busy days. “Well, Guten Tag, Miss Weeks. Fancy seeing you at this hour.” He brought out a jar and offered it to Kitty.
She shook her head. “No, thanks. Are these the pickles that Mrs. Codd made?” She often brought him samples of her cook’s spicier experiments.
“Mmm-hmm. My compliments to the chef. This batch is particularly potent. But you were saying—?”
“Elspeth Bright, the girl somnambulist, was studying something to do with batteries before she died, and I was hoping you could help me learn more about them.” Kitty made a face. “I know it’s probably a vast topic.”
“Have you considered speaking to her teachers?”
“School isn’t in session. And besides, I think I should understand the subject before I start asking questions.”
Musser stepped out from behind his counter. “You don’t make this easy, Miss Weeks.”
“I thought you would appreciate the challenge.”
The fuzzy eyebrows wrinkled. “All right then. Batteries, batteries, batteries.” He shuffled to the wall of drawers that held his painstakingly detailed index cards.
“Batteries,” he said again and opened a drawer. He flipped through the entries, then shook his head.
“Is there something wrong, Mr. Musser?”
“There’s just too much information. You will be overwhelmed—I am overwhelmed. Do you even know what a battery is?”
“Not really,” Kitty admitted. “I know it stores electricity, and it makes things go?”
The old man laughed. “You’re as bad as I am. Tell me more about this girl. Did she have any interest in cars, for instance?”
“I have no idea. Her work on batteries may have had something to do with Thomas Edison.” Kitty recalled Prudence Marquand’s remark about the photograph pinned beside Elspeth’s desk.
“That’s like a literary scholar who studies Shakespeare. It hardly narrows things down.”
“I wish I could, Mr. Musser, but I don’t know anything more than what I’ve just told you.”
“Well then, we will have to try again tomorrow. The newsroom needs stories on the Welland Canal business”—German spies had been caught trying to blow up the canal in Canada and thereby disrupt North American shipping routes—“as well as the automobile show and the English bond market. And those must come first.”
“You don’t have an extra minute?”
“It’s not just an extra minute’s work. That’s the problem.” He retreated to his counter. “We’ll find you something, fräulein. Don’t look so disappointed.”
“Thank you, Mr. Musser.” Kitty had no choice but to wait until his more pressing tasks were finished.
• • •
Julian Weeks heard the front door open from his study.
“You’re late, Capability,” he called.
Kitty peeled off her gloves and handed them to Grace. “I’m sorry. I sent Rao back for you.” She joined him inside. Kitty had told the chauffeur to go home after he dropped her off at the Marquands. Now she feared that Rao might have mentioned her little detour.
“I was about to leave.” Then Mr. Weeks slipped in casually, “You had a visitor. A young man.”
“Who?”
“That Secret Service agent you met over the summer, Mr. Soames. He said he had been in touch.”
Kitty felt her ears go hot. “He sent me one letter.” She had met Soames briefly before he was transferred to Washington, DC. And after that one letter, he had gone quiet.
“He waited for half an hour, I’d say. Seems a very nice fellow. Intelligent, well-mannered. I liked his conversation.”
Kitty collected her thoughts and said, “What did you talk about?”
“Oh, this and that. He asked if he could call on you this weekend.”
“And what did you tell him?”
“I said you would be out tomorrow morning and night, so he will try to come by on Saturday afternoon. He leaves for Washington on Sunday. He must be busy—he’s on the president’s security detail now.”
“Oh.” Kitty tried to sound casual when she was both intrigued and impressed. “I didn’t know that.”
• • •
“Here you go.” Mr. Musser slid a pile of papers onto Kitty’s table. “On the eve of the year’s most festive celebration, the modern girl studies electric storage batteries.”
“You know me too well, Mr. Musser.”
“All work and no play?”
“Now you’re teasing.” Kitty picked up the first story.
“Aren’t you excited about the news?”
“Which news exactly?”
“That the Austrian government has punished the U-boat captain responsible for sinking the Ancona and is offering reparations for all the lives lost.”
“Why should I be excited?” Kitty itched to begin her own work. The Ancona was an Italian passenger liner that had sunk in November, resulting in two hundred deaths. It was tragic but nothing compared to the numbers this past May when a German U-boat torpedoed the Lusitania.
“If Germany follows suit with the Lusitania case,” Musser said, “it will show that they’re acting in good faith, and the warmongers will find it harder to press their cause.”
“That’s a big ‘if,’ Mr. Musser. It’s been seven months, and President Wilson and his counterparts in Berlin still can’t seem to come to an agreement.”
“I live in hope, Miss Weeks. The new year will bring good news.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it, Mr. Musser.”
“Ah, the bitterness of young people.”
“I don’t mean any disrespect, sir”—Kitty suddenly felt angry—“but old men in Germany, England, and Russia decided to go to war, and young men are dying in it.”
“I was only joking, Miss Weeks,” the archivist said.
Kitty controlled her frustration and returned to her papers. What a strange mood he was in. He and Miss Busby—it was as though Kitty had become cautious and hardened, and they’d become young and optimistic, almost carefree.
Kitty flipped through the stories Mr. Musser had selected for her. In 1908, a Dr. O. F. Reinholt of Newark, New Jersey, had invented something called an aluminum wet storage battery; in 1909, Norwegian inventor Gross claimed he had invented a storage battery. Kitty didn’t know what the difference was.
An article from 1907, NEW BATTERIES POWERFUL, said that Frank C. Curtis of Milwaukee, “inventor of the new battery,” expected it to supplant “present sources for light, heat, and power, and gave today some remarkable instances of its abilities.” These included powering an electric runabout for 150 miles on a single charge (eighteen cells required), powering a motorboat for nineteen hours (eight cells), and powering an electric piano for months (six cells). Each cell weighed about twelve pounds and was made from new alloys.
Kitty’s eyes glazed over as she read the chemical description: ore…precipitates…metal…sulfides…zinc, aluminum, cadmium, ionites…
If this was what was on her mind, no wonder Elspeth Bright had disturbed sleep.
An article from 1906 had to do with Thomas Edison and was simply titled ENERGY AND MR. EDISON. Kitty skimmed through it once and then read it again, more carefully, finally beginning to understand what all the fuss about batteries was.
The essay explained that mankind was still a child in relation to the problem of energy. For centuries, humans had depended on wind and water for power. The magnificent steam engin
e, which propelled boats across the Atlantic, relied on vast amounts of burning coal for a week’s journey.
But, the article said, “it is not through pure mechanism that energy will be most economically appropriated.”
Something clicked for Kitty. All mankind’s sources of energy so far relied on physical mechanics—steam mills, windmills, water wheels, the steam engine all depended on actual movement or burning—to produce energy. However, a battery relied on the actions of chemicals upon one another to produce power. It was ingenious!
The 1906 story said that although the storage battery held much promise, as yet, it had accomplished little. But that had been written a decade ago, and a different piece from 1911 said Mr. Edison had announced to the public that he had perfected a storage battery for the running of cars and trucks. The problem with previous batteries was that cars needed to be recharged overnight. The new battery could run a car or truck for up to sixty miles and then be recharged in three minutes.
Were those batteries currently in use? Kitty wondered. Then she realized, since she didn’t see too many battery-operated cars on the street, probably not. Perhaps they didn’t work as well as Mr. Edison claimed. She visualized Elspeth Bright in a lab, wearing goggles and pouring fizzy chemical solutions from one beaker into another. Her thoughts raced. Could Elspeth have concocted her own chemical mix? One that solved the problems of its predecessors and produced incredible amounts of energy while requiring very little time to charge? If so, no wonder she didn’t seem like other girls. No wonder she radiated confidence.
Kitty realized this was all sheer speculation, based solely on the opinion of grumpy Prudence Marquand. Her next step would have to be to return to Westfield Hall and speak to Mrs. Swartz, the science mistress.
• • •
“Are you ready?” Miss Busby said to Kitty and Jeannie. “Are you all set?” Her eyes sparkled. “I heard that tonight, New York City will celebrate in record-breaking numbers. All the hotels and restaurants are booked, crowds of up to five hundred thousand are expected, and police reserves have been called to be on hand to keep revelers in check. Mayor Mitchel has given 219 establishments special licenses to stay open late, but they all must close at three o’clock.